Faith and Works, Abraham illustration
James 2:21-23 · Roy Smith · May 28, 2023
James, No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926193126258

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

If you haven't done so already, may I ask you to open your Bibles, and we're going to take a Lesson 19 tour today of James 2, verses 21 through 23. Roger's given this a title, Faith and Works, Abraham's Illustration. I'm going to begin today with a small overview of the book of James.

Verse 1, James, a bondservant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad. Greetings. Verse 2. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. James presents himself here as a servant of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Before crucifixion, in unbelief in Jesus as God, doing God's work, James was related below in God's human family. He was one under his older half-brother, Jesus. Isn't that something? After crucifixion, in belief that Jesus is God, doing God's work, James was related above in God's divine heavenly family as one under his older full brother, Jesus.

What an opening this is. We are commanded here to enjoy God's joy as our faith in God is purified by Him. James writes here as God's new and kind and perfectly loved son, that it is God's command that we enjoy God's joy while our faith in God is being purified by God. A lot of that's review, isn't it? We've been over that. I'd like to give a small overview of the book of James here continuing. We enjoy God's joy as our faith in God is purified by him. Verse three, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Hope you're following along in your Bibles.

God wants us to know his purpose, for purifying our faith. God wants to make our current condition in Christ be conformed to our eternal position in Christ. Our lesson today focuses on this. So God informs us of the steps of his work on our new of God's kind of nature.

Step one, is God's gift of purification or testing of our faith in him and his work. Step two, God's gift is endurance. We become confident now in God and his work. And step three, it is God's gift of his righteousness and we become perfect, complete now, lacking nothing.

Aren't these first four verses powerful? What a message! His and our perfection or righteousness includes all of the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are listed in Galatians 5 verses 22 through 23.

I'd like to give a small overview of the book of James in continuation now with the illustration in James of God's work on our new of God's kind nature. Look, first we saw James in verse 1. James, the bondservant of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, today's lesson, we will see Abraham and Isaac. Was not Abraham our father, justified by works? when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar?

That's verse 21 of chapter 2. In the future, we'll learn about Rehab in verse 25 of chapter 22. And in the same way, was not Rehab the harlot also justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? But that's not all. There we go. Job in chapter 5, verse 11. Behold, we count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

And finally, we're going to learn about Elijah. In chapter 5, verses 17 through 18, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. What an overview, isn't it? Now let's look at our lesson today, verse 21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? Here are some observations on verse 21.

Abraham was called out of an idolatrous culture, Ur of the Chaldees area. into God's culture. He lived under God's specific rule and care, but he was not under God's Mosaic law. He lived before it was given. He illustrates God's joyful plan to purify each man's faith in God by tests. He was God's choice to be the father of a special God-formed nation. God's plan was for his nation to purely reveal God to all the men-formed nations. What a contrast! His nation to reveal purely God himself to all the man-formed nations.

Isaac, Abraham's son, came after many years of God's testing Abraham's faith. Isaac's birth was God's joyful work, enabling Abraham to procreate in his old age. And Isaac was Abraham's joy as well, and so much so that he named him Isaac, which means laughter. We even read in scripture that when God told Abraham he would have a son in his old age, he was almost 100. And Sarah in the background laughed.

Isn't that something? We hear and see God's love toward all of us as he reveals and shares his glory. Did he reveal and share his glory to Abraham? Yeah, he sure did. Isaac's son, Jacob, called the usurper. That's his name meaning. God renamed Israel. meaning wrestler with God. Isn't that something? Israel's 12 sons are the fathers of the family tribes of God's newly formed nation, Israel. The wrestler of God nation. Isn't that something? God will show and share himself by his nation, Israel, fully in his 1,000-year kingdom. It's yet to become reality, isn't it? That's the millennium yet to come after the tribulation.

Look at verse 22 with me. You see, key words, that faith was working with his works. And as a result of the works, faith was perfected. Wow. Here's some observations. The work you see is the evidence of God's Son, Jesus, being trusted by man. And this was true of Abraham, just as it's true of us. He believed that there's a promised one that would come. Isn't that something? For his sins as well as ours.

Jesus, trusted by a man, will produce godly good through that man. That's the principle we see here. God's reality, the object of man's trust, is the source of godly good being done. Emphasis on source there, isn't there? It is what he believed, the actual object of his trust, that was the source of godly good being done. Part of godly good being done is the purification, the purity work of God. of the facts that man trusts with him.

Verse 22 sort of restates the purpose of God, to refine each man's trusted reality of God, and to reveal his good, his righteousness or perfection, both to and through him. Notice the emphasis here is on who is doing the seeing. You see, don't you, in this verse, the results of God working.

This sort of amplifies why God wants us to know the basis of His joy and let it become our joy. As he refines our trust in the reality of God, his good, his perfection is going to be revealed. Boy, I tell you, that's such a powerful concept to get firmly in the reality that we know of God's ways with us. God wants us to see his glory, his perfection, his reality revealed both to and through us. Only God's love could extend this privilege to us, to see and reveal Him, not just inadequately, but adequately, correctly. He shows us His essence in His prepared works that we are privileged to express or to walk in. We learn this from other verses, don't we? However, here in verses 21 and 22, God teaches us his Genesis 22 commentary of his work through Abraham.

God refined his faith so both he and Isaac could know, trust, and show God's good correctly. God told him, go off with your son. Abraham, next day, obeyed. Isaac, I see the wood. For the sacrifice, where's the ram? And the answer of Abraham, God will provide his land. Verse 23 reads, and the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And he was called the friend of God.

Here's some observations. We see God's essence in man when man believes God and his work correctly. And this fulfills scripture concerning Abraham, Isaac, Rahab, Job, and Elijah. All of those are going to be given as examples of this in this brief part of God's implanted word, James.

This scripture, Genesis 15.6, is quoted here. It's about Abraham. The quote is when he was 40 plus years before he offered Isaac.

It says, then he believed the Lord and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. God does the reckoning, doesn't he, in this quote. Note that God's Spirit tells us the historical sequence of God's dealing with Him and with us. First, that He believed in the Lord. Then, that God declared Him righteousness, or righteous. No works here. Only faith in the Lord resulted in God's declaration of His goodness. being now Abraham's goodness. I want to repeat that. It resulted in God's declaration of his goodness, that's God's, being now Abraham's goodness or perfection.

Later, he showed his essence by the action of going and offering his son on that sacrifice. That's an evidence of that reality that he believed of God, isn't it? James Hollis' writing style of explaining the basis of truth after giving truth. So he first gives the evidence of faith in God and his word that can be seen by men. And that's why we have verses 21 and 23 showing the evidence before the basis that made that evidence possible in verse 23.

God uses James to do this so that we may know God's plan is a process to mature our new of God's kind of nature, that we may know believe and reveal him. Abraham believed God, and when men saw the essence of God's goodness lived out in him, they called him the friend of God.

And I want to caution you. James 4.4, God says, that he wants us to be his friend, but not the world's friend. Quote, do you not know that the friendship of the world or with the world is hostility towards God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself the enemy of God. So, here's a question. Is there a conflict here between James and Paul about God's plan for men? No, and I want to say it again emphatically, no. There is a complementary teaching here about God's plans.

Notice, both Paul in Romans 4, which by the way we're studying in the morning worship hour right now, and in James chapter 2, 21 through 23, speak of justification using the same word. Justification means to be declared righteous. But when reading each book, the question is, Who does the text say is declaring me righteous? And what does it mean to me?

Romans expresses how God's able to declare sinners who place their faith in Jesus' death and resurrection as cleansed from all unrighteousness. even though in his earthly life were far from perfect. James, on the other hand, speaks of how a believer can be declared righteous by the surrounding world. which is observing our lives to see if they match what our mouths are saying. Most observers find that what they see is a very offensive truth, even though they acknowledge it. In both cases, the writers use the same word, but what they mean for the believer is quite different. You don't want to confuse the two. Here's a bit of an explanation.

God sees us now, born from above, with a new nature and identity. We are personally completely righteous because God's Spirit has placed us in Christ to share His righteousness. But we're conditionally growing in both our faith in God and in the process of letting Christ's righteousness be revealed through our bodies. Another way of saying this is our new man, earthly condition is growing into our fixed heavenly position in Christ.

And that doesn't even cover hardly anything about this process, but it is an overview, isn't it? Some thoughts of application. Not only is the mature Christian patient and testing, it's called endurance for James 1, but he also lives and reveals the truth, the perfection of God, for James chapter two. Immature Christians talk their beliefs, but mature Christians reveal God.

Just hearing God's word and talking about God's word, can never be a substitute for God revealing himself to us and through us. The Holy Spirit produces inner transformation in every believer. When we believe that we are sinners and that Christ fully paid the penalty of death for our sins. The Holy Spirit will produce outer transformation as well, unless we quench and grieve Him while He gives and shows us the life qualities of Christ, both to us and through us.

So we now know this. that God now is showing and sharing himself through his spiritual men, his church. That's the reality of today. May these be the facts. We may all be implanted in us from these verses. Out of the power of God's word implanted us by his spirit.

We're blessed both to hear and personally know, as He is born from above ones, the grace and the reality of God's Son, Jesus, and the greatness of His work and His plans for us. Are we joyfully looking at Jesus as God now sees Him? and reveals Him? I'd like to give you a very brief overview of God's plans for His creation from His Word.

God originally created man to fill and rule His creation, didn't He? But man sinned, and the earth groans now. And most men have rejected Christ's love in all of his dispensations, even during the thousand-year rule of Christ yet to come. So he will separate all that is evil from all that is good. I couldn't find an easier way to summarize God's overview of his work with us as humanity. However, then after he separates evil from all that is good, Christ will create a new earth and heaven and fill it with all of his perfected earthly men of Israel and Gentile nations. And he will also fill with his perfected heavenly men of his church. that you and me.

Many believe at this point that Christ will present his kingdom to the Father. But some see here that Christ feels his new creation and his perfection is to be unhindered by sin for a time that he has determined. possibly for a thousand human generations.

Look at these verses. There are seven of them. Translations from a Jewish emphasis, the complete Jewish Bible of 1998, the Tanakh from 1985 and 1917 editions, And Isaac Leeser's 24 books of the Holy Scriptures of 1891 all render these six specific Hebrew passages with the English expression, thousand generations. And two of them add a seventh passage, Jeremiah 32, 18. Let me read the other six for those listening in audio. Exodus 20, verse 6, and Exodus 34, 7. Deuteronomy 5, 10. Deuteronomy 7, 9. 1 Chronicles 16, 15. Psalms 105, 8. And then the one passage that two of them reference, Jeremiah 32, 18.

Christ, however, depending on how you view this future, will finally advocate as man his perfect kingdom. He's king in the thousand years, isn't he? But he's going to advocate that kingship. And he's going to give it to God the Father as the perfectly completed work that the Father gave him to do. And that's we learn in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 24 and 28. Christ, the perfect union of God and man, will then take up his eternal co-rule with the Father over his perfect inhabited creation. He, as the glorified Son of God, no longer will rule under the Father, but will co-rule level with the Father forever.

God through James has a lot more for us. Next week, and in the following weeks, we have the examples of Rahab, Job, and Elijah, and all of the details that God led James to write about in this, the rest of this part of God's written and designed to be implanted in us, God's living Word. Here's the text of today's lesson, both in the New American Standard Version of 1995, and my literal rendering of it. And then finally, here's Wiest's rendering of it. Let me read Wiest's.

Was not our favorite Abraham vindicated by works bracket, justified as to his claim to a living faith, end bracket, in that he offered his son Isaac on the altar a sacrifice. You see that the aforementioned faith was cooperating and working with his works, bracket, and therefore was responsible for their production, end bracket. And by his works was this faith brought to completion in a well-rounded whole. And the scripture was actually and fully realized, or brought into operation, which says, And Abraham believed God, and it, his act of faith, was put to his account for righteousness. And a friend of God he was called.

Here is the actual work that I did looking at these verses and giving it a literal translation. I'm not going to go into those details here, but I'm giving it for those of you who want to see a little bit of the work done to understand this passage. It's not hard work. This is all online. Any one of you can find it easily.

And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And he was called the friend of God. Right? Yeah. I don't know if you're done, but anyway, I just had a few points that I wanted to make. So here's God speaking to Abraham directly, right? And so Isaac is the promised one, right? So in fact, proving his faith and believing God, he was willing to sacrifice his son, probably knowing that God would not take his only begotten son, who was really the promise of the future. So your thoughts on that.

And secondly, it's not that God talks to us You know, this whole issue of him being called a friend of God because he was obedient to him. I guess, you know, if we turn to the New Testament, we think of a verse in John that I think says, you know, if you do what I command you, you'll be my friends. So what if we don't do what he commands us? Are we not his friend? Is the love for us any way altered by the fact that we may not follow his direction, you know, concurrently? Why did Abraham not know that he was a friend of God by his obedience? Why is that mentioned for the first time in James?

I mean, your thoughts about some of those things. I'm not challenging Scripture. I believe what it says, but some interesting things come up here, I think. Sure. One of the first things that you asked was, as he went to offer Isaac, what was his thinking? And I think it's very clear, because Isaac asked him, Here's the wood for the sacrifice, where's the rain? And his response to Isaac was, God will provide his land. Isn't that something? And he actually believed that God would take care of this situation and resurrect, if necessary, Isaac.

His only loved son, his unique son, now I shouldn't say only loved because he also loved Esau, but he loved him in a fashion that was unique, right? Because he knew that through this son would come God's unique son, Christ, his Savior. That's the basis of his faith. that began way before, 40 years before, this walk with his now living self.

Boy, it's interesting that Genesis passage you read, or we talked about, God promises him that his descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky. That's only part of the promise. I agree, I agree, but I'm just saying that Abraham was so convinced, and like you said, that if it took God to resurrect his son, it was going to happen. He didn't have any question in his mind that God was going to fulfill what he promised to do. So I think that's kind of a cool point, that even if Isaac's life was taken there, God would resurrect him to fulfill what he had promised him back in Genesis 15-6. But it's still evidence of his faith by his works, right? He's believing God and following through what God has asked him to do. So that's the neat thing about this is that we owe a lot to Abraham simply by showing us what faith's all about.

Was he, by the way, in his lifestyle always showing God's character? No. So was he not a friend of God, but he wasn't? And was he, though, also privileged to hear from God about Lot and the rescue of Lot in the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah? Did not God perfect his trust in him in that process?

So that 40 years later, when he asked him to offer Isaac his son as a sacrifice, he knew God had something to teach him. Yeah, and he would have done it. I mean, it's obvious that the Lord, you know, believes he would do it, because he stepped in and said, don't do it.

So that's pretty amazing. What a lesson we have today, don't we? And what a lesson we have to look forward to when we look at Rahab and Job and Elijah in the next verses. And I'm anticipating with joy those things as well. What a wonderful thing to share, boy. Any other questions, discussions, thoughts? You asked maybe a few. I don't know.

The friend of God. That's stated to Abraham directly, and also John reflecting on what he said before his do what I command you, you'll be called friends of God. So, I mean, think about that a little bit. And again, Abraham never recognized he was going to be called a friend of God, but James tells us about that. Your thoughts? In the New Testament, let's use that as an example.

What did our Lord say to the disciples? No longer do I call you my disciples, but my friends. He looks at them as his friends. even before his crucifixion. Wow. God can see the future before it happens, can't he? And so he knew the process of developing the faith in these men was going to happen. And he could call them even before he was crucified. And by the way, he did it voluntarily. They were his friends. They were in harmony with him. Okay, in righteousness, in correctness of their belief.

Little as it was, and it was little. And it wasn't very strong because they all went their own ways when he was being crucified. And they were confused. And it was only by the work of the Holy Spirit afterwards that they gained that knowledge, didn't they? That he perfected their faith. Working with them, all of them, different ways, but consistently. I'm glad he still does that today. I don't know if I've discussed it enough, Bob. Is that where you wanted me to go? No, not exactly, but we're good.

It seems like the only way we can ever become the friend of God is because of Christ. His sacrifice on our behalf. permanently sealed the deal. We are His by virtue of the fact that we trust in what Christ has done for us. So our relationship with Him totally depends upon what Christ has done and His sacrifice for us. That's right, Roger, and I think the whole issue is when we fall short of God's glory in our lives and do not respond to the power of the Holy Spirit in this new creation we are in Christ Jesus, that friendship from our perspective is altered. But not from his. Exactly.

So Abraham being called the friend of God relates to this circumstance which the verse states, I think. And you know when Abraham was disobedient, which we have plenty of examples of, ultimately was he no longer the friend. So I'm just thinking this friendship relates to the perception Do you think you could put fellowship in that? I think that's what I'm saying, right, is that our fellowship makes that friendship seem distant.

Yeah. But how personal that is. Yes. Not only are we his child, but we're his loved fully. Right. Friend. So that he will correct us and not let us go on with incorrect beliefs. Why? And even if he has to take us home to be with him, he'll do that, too, to correct us. So that we can live in his joy is his real pleasure, right? Now, the question is, and I'll leave it with you again, is it our joy right now? Is our joy his joy? that we are not the objects of his love, but the vessels of his love to reveal himself, to know him among the men that we live among.

Wow, what a privilege that is. What a joy it is, too. Isn't that wonderful? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time. I know that we've only touched a little bit of your future for us. You are so magnificent in your work, and it overwhelms us. It just gives us great joy to know that you love us that much, that you correct us and guide us so that you can reveal yourself through us. May you be seen in our lives, each of us, Lord. Fulfill your design, your perfection. In Christ's name, amen.